A New Year: A New Resolve, a Renewed Moral Compass for Public Health

A New Year: A New Resolve, a Renewed Moral Compass for Public Health

“Auschwitz is outside of us, but it is all around us, in the air. The plague has died away, but the infection still lingers and it would be foolish to deny it. Rejection of human solidarity, obtuse and cynical indifference to the suffering of others, abdication of the intellect and of moral sense to the principle of authority, and above all, at the root of everything, a sweeping tide of cowardice, a colossal cowardice which masks itself as warring virtue, love of country and faith in an idea.”          – Primo Levi, The Black Hole of Auschwitz

‘We live in an age where billionaires dodge their taxes, politicians perform instead of govern, and media barons profit from lies and hatred. The Roman elite fiddled while Rome burned. Our elites live-streamed the fire and monetized the smoke. Immorality and unseriousness. Those are the two defining traits of our leaders today. And they’re not accidental flaws, but the logical outcome of what I call the survival of the shameless. Today, it’s not the most capable who rise, but at least scrupulous. Not the most virtuous, but most brazen.’ – Rutger Bregman, The moral revolution

Then let us pray that come it may,
As come it will for a’ that,
That Sense and Worth, o’er a’ the earth
Shall bear the gree an’ a’ that.
For a’ that, an’ a’ that,
It’s comin yet for a’ that,
That Man to Man the warld o’er
Shall brithers be for a’ that.

– Robert Burns –A man’s a man for a’ that

A new resolve

Friends, colleague, defenders of health!

Each January, we commemorate the Holocaust and the life of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Some of us celebrate on ‘Burns night’, the life and work of Scots’ poet Robert Burns. 

The time to wish you a happy new year has long faded. This January, if not a month for new resolutions, has certainly been a month for renewed resolve. 

Already in January 2026, we have moved into even darker times around the world.  Martin Luther King told us that ‘only when it is dark enough, can you see the stars’. Primo Levi described an abdication of intellect and of moral sense. In his brilliant BBC Reith Lectures, Dutch Historian Rutger Bregman, calls for moral revolution. 

Clinical practice can save lives one by one- public health practice can save lives in millions…. 

The public health community, battered by moral distress and injury during the pandemic, must now rise to a new level of moral courage, to face down the multiple insults ranged against us. Deborah Morris and colleagues tell us addressing the moral harms is a public health imperative and associated solutions have a critical role to play in dampening the flames of current turmoil.

A renewed moral compass for public health

Is the public health community ready to step up to the moral challenge now facing us? 

The rallying calls in the public health literature have been accelerating in recent years, calling us to action. European leaders prompted us that health is a political choice in 2024. Karatekin and others called for re-politicizing the WHO social determinants of health framework. American leaders celebrating 115 years of the American journal of  Public Health, last year warned of multiple threats to public health policy and education, globally, and in the US. Last year, my colleague, Sebastian Levesque and I set out what we believe are the geopolitical forces dominating our world today, destroying our health now, and threatening more devastation for the future. Martin Mckee, Josep Figueres, Ashish Joshi, Ramune Kalediene, Laura Magaña and others set out why the public health community must develop our skills in public health diplomacy. We must critically examine our understanding of ethics and law, as so beautifully set out in the journal of public health ethics supplement, edited by Farhang Tahzib, just published. The new public health ethics and law (PHEL) network webpages will soon be housed on the GNAPH  website HERE  and we must reassert our ethical values in the climate of geopolitics we find ourselves in. 

Courage in dark times for the public’s health

Above the ethical and the professional, is also the moral. We must commit to our science, to improve and protect the people and planet… 

Is public health just a technical exercise?  Or is it a vocation?  A profession? A service? And beyond the roles expected by society, to be involved in public health has always required personal commitment and personal courage, and never more so than now.

In my presentations to the Polish public health authorities last year, I talked about courage in dark times for the public health. The Lancet’s  2025 highlights provides pictorial inspiration and admiration for the struggles and achievements of the global health community.